1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to measurement of characteristics of human beings that affect their behavior and relates more specifically to the objective measurement of discrepancies in human value systems. The measurements of the discrepancies are used to determine xe2x80x9cfitxe2x80x9d between human beings, between a human being and an organization, and between organizations, as well as to determine a human being""s or an organization""s progress in reaching its goals. The discrepancy measurement can be part of a larger process which determines what values an individual or organization desires, what values it presently has, and what needs to be done to acquire the desired values.
2. Description of Related Art
It has long been observed that people get along better if they have similar value systems. One expression of this observation is xe2x80x9cbirds of a feather flock togetherxe2x80x9d. Another is the substantial expense many parents go to send their children to colleges where they will meet members of the opposite sex who are xe2x80x9clike themxe2x80x9d. A third is the tendency of organizations to hire people who are like the people that already work there.
A difficulty with making use of the observation that people get along better if they have similar value systems is that there has in the past been no good way to measure similarity or lack thereof in value systems. People have consequently used external clues to judge what someone""s value system wasxe2x80x94physical appearance, dress, mode of speaking, family ties, organizational membership, educational history, income level, and the like. While such clues are not without their value, they are not in themselves objective indicators of values, and in many cases they are not even objectively measurable, and people who use such clues are generally left with no more than a vague feeling that xe2x80x9cshe""ll fit in herexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9che won""t fit in here.xe2x80x9d In many cases, people who have looked like they would fit in haven""t, and worse, many people who would in fact have fit in haven""t been given a chance. All of this is bad enough when what is at stake is who to hire or what organization to join, but when what you are doing is choosing the person with whom you intend to spend the rest of your life, a mistake can be truly disastrous for everyone involved.
Another area where value systems are important is in organizations. How an organization behaves is determined by the organization""s value system and by the degree to which the members of the organization have adopted that value system. No organization can change significantly without changing its value system and persuading its members to adopt the changed value system. The new value system must be one that is xe2x80x9creachablexe2x80x9d given the old value system and the values of the organization""s members, and there has to be a plan to get from the old value system to the new one. Determining whether the new value system is reachable, making a plan, and persuading the members to adopt the new value system are all made more difficult by the lack of any objective way to measure discrepancies in value systems.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide objective techniques for determining the values in a value system, measuring discrepancies in human value systems, and to provide applications of those techniques in determining the xe2x80x9cgoodness of fitxe2x80x9d between individuals, between individuals and organizations, and between organizations, in measuring changes in values over time, and in determining the progress that an individual or organization is making in acting according to a set of desired values.
The techniques of the invention measures discrepancies between human value systems by selecting a set of values and having entities such as individuals or organizations make a hierarchy of the values by giving each value a rating number that indicates a rating in the hierarchy. A rating number may be any value upon which arithmetic operations may be performed. The rating numbers given to the values are compared to understand how a first entity""s values relate to a second entity""s values. In order to facilitate computation and comparison, in a preferred embodiment, each value is associated with one rating number in a predetermined range of rating numbers, a fixed number of values is associated with each rating number, and the number of values that have a given rating number decreases towards the ends of the predetermined range.
The techniques may be used to investigate discrepancies for the purpose of determining the xe2x80x9cfitxe2x80x9d between individuals, between individuals and communities, and between communities. They may also be used to measure changes in values over time and to measure differences between the current values of individuals or communities and desired values for the individuals and communities.
Values and ratings that are predictive of attaining a desired result may be found by providing a set of values that appear to be relevant to attaining the desired result to a group of entities and having them make a hierarchy of the values as well as providing an estimate of how well they have reached the desired result. Values that show a high correlation to attaining the desired result are retained and the process is repeated with new values until a sufficient number of values have been found. The values and rating numbers for the last iteration have a high correlation to attaining the desired result and may be used to determine how entities are progressing towards acquiring values that will aid them in attaining the desired result.
Other objects and advantages will be apparent to those skilled in the arts to which the invention pertains upon perusal of the following Detailed Description and drawing, wherein: